Like I suspect many of you will, I am choosing to use a pseudonym on this forum. I'm still too raw and sore from the ordeal that has been the last year and a half of my life to put my name out there on top of it, but I am sick of feeling alone. I'm sick of feeling like a failure. I started this forum in the hopes that others will stumble across it or be referred. I know you're out there. I know you're in the same place I am. I want to know you, feel comforted by your presence and comfort you with mine. People suggested that I merely keep a journal, however every journal entry left me feeling more depressed and pathetic. I don't want a journal, I want an online family, a support group who feels my pain because it mirrors their own. People I feel I can talk to without having to fake my smiles and fake how "well" my job hunt is going. People I don't have to glue that stupid smile on my face and nod and thank profusely when they offer me the most ridiculous advice I've ever heard, or worse, advice so elementary I'd have had to be a moron with an IQ of 5 not to have thought of it before I entered the job market officially.
So my story. I graduated from graduate school in July of 2007 with a Masters in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. I have Arabic and Hebrew language training. I have experience living overseas in the Middle East. I graduated thinking I'd find multiple job offers no problem. After all, aren't people with that skill set SUPPOSED to be in high demand in today's global setting? Apparently not.
Originally I moved home, back into my parents house in the Midwest. My thought was I would work temp jobs while I job hunted in a rent-free environment and save up some money. I figured it would only be 3 months, 6 absolute tops, and then I'd be moving to a city with a job in hand and finally be able to stop living like a pauper student. Things didn't quite turn out that way.
I'm a computer person. I love that everything is automated now. At least, I THOUGHT I loved it. When I started trying to apply for jobs I finally found the horrible downside. I kept sending out resume after resume, cover letter after cover letter, into that cold dark vacuum of cyberspace and never hearing anything back. My confirmation emails would specifically say "please no emails or phone calls". As if I COULD email or call them. I could almost NEVER find the phone number or email address of an actual person in the agency, nevertheless in HR. I came to realize that these sites were using key word screeners to kick out resumes before they even made it to human eyes. Try as I might to incorporate the exact phrasing from the job announcement into my resumes and cover letters, I'm STILL not sure any of them ever made it past that initial automatic screening process.
I came to learn quickly that in this job market it's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know and I apparently know nobody. Or at least I know nobody willing to help me. My family and I have tapped every resource we can possibly think of, but nothing. Finally I was able to secure what was supposed to be a 6 month temp job out here in the DC area, where most of the organizations looking or people with my skill sets reside. So at the beginning of this month I trucked on out here to try my luck here in person. To see if I could network and have any better luck when my address was local. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be having any more luck and my temp job seems to be having a LOT of trouble getting off the ground so I'm not making the money I need to survive off of out here. For a few weeks there, I felt like everything was finally falling into place after a year and a half of feeling continually more and more out of control and depressed. Now that control I gained is slipping again. I'm slipping again. I HATE it. I don't want to go back there. I'm not sure I have the strength to survive another ride on the roller coster.
So here I am, starting a forum and hoping others will respond. Others like me who just need to be surrounded, virtually or otherwise, by people who actually understand what I'm feeling and what I'm going through. If we can help each other along the way in our job hunt, great, but that's not my main goal. I feel like if we can form a community, have a support system here on this forum, we might all find that we can help each other climb out of the hole enough to see a glimpse of day again. Enough to help us regain our footing and our confidence and make the magic happen. I look forward to the day when we can all leave our "jobless" membership badges at the door and go out into the real world confident, knowing that we are NOT failures, that we really do have something to offer to the world, a difference to make because SOMEONE out there gave us our break and made us feel human again.
Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:09 am
